WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages. All spoilers will be unmarked!
Dawn of War
- From the first installment, Isador asking Gabriel to forgive him, only to be told he's damned himself because of his treason and summarily executed.
- Gabriel's heartbroken reaction to Isador's betrayal. The guy sounds like he can hardly believe his own eyes.Gabriel: ...Old friend?
- Gabriel's journal entry for the final mission bitterly illustrates the shear bleakness of 40k. That here the best a righteous individual can ever hope to achieve against overwhelming evil is defiance and bloody retribution, and little else.Gabriel: The planet of Tartarus is ravaged. Its population has fled or died under the foot of the Ork. Its cities are smashed and burning. Its very ground is irrevocably tainted with the blood of aliens, traitors, and cultists. There is nothing left, nothing but blasphemous heathens, and the mighty space marines who will destroy them. In this dark place, in this dark hour, we will stand against the enemies of the Emperor. And they will know that not even here on this desecrated infernal rock will we suffer the existence of the heretic. Not now. Not ever.
Dark Crusade
- From Dark Crusade, the ending to the Tau stronghold mission is heartbreaking. After fighting valiantly to protect their planet, Kais sees the Ethereal die, loses hope and solemnly leaves with the rest of his troops.Shas'O Kais: We will return Aun'el to T'au for burial... there is nothing left for us here.
- Also, the ending to the Eldar stronghold mission in Dark Crusade. The Eldar are left stranded on the planet after the destruction of the Webway gate, and Taldeer orders her forces to retreat into the wilderness, but refuses to go along.Harlequin: Escape is still possible, Farseer -
Taldeer: I do not deserve that title, Harlequin. My vision has failed us all. - If you are playing the Blood Ravens or the Imperial Guard in Dark Crusade and you attack the other Imperial faction's home base, the player's Commander will repeatedly plead with his counterpart to lay down arms peacefully. Neither Thule nor Alexander want this war, but their hands are bound by an oversight of the Imperium's beauracracy.
- The text of the Vindicare Assassin honor guard? Should Alexander fail his mission, he would end up in the assassin's hit list. Alexander really doesn't have a choice.
Soulstorm
- In the Soulstorm Campaign, the ending cutscene for several of the factions campaigns are pretty grisly.
- If the Dark Eldar win the campaign than their ending cutscene shows them killing or capturing every single human being in Kaurava.
Dawn of War II
- Thaddeus' response to Avitus' contempt for the Chapter and the very notion of hope.Thaddeus: Perhaps, but I will cling to hope for a while longer, I think. And if the secrets of the Chapter cost me that? Well, then I will stand stand with my brothers... all of them.
Dawn of War II Chaos Rising
- During your second mission to Aurelia, you take Captain Thule along because one of the dead Blood Ravens was his second-in-command. Also a Heartwarming Moment, as even when under attack by a horde of Eldar, Thule refuses to leave Endymion's body. Once the last of the war host is killed, he says:Davian Thule: There... now Endymion can rest...
- Throughout Chaos Rising, one of your squadmates - someone who fought alongside you, who has been with you throughout the struggle to protect the Aurelia Sector from Tyranids - is aiding the Black Legion in killing you. You then have to hunt down and kill the traitor.
- If Jonah Orion is the traitor then the game makes it clear that it isn't his fault. After you decode the message you receive one from him where he pleads that he was forced to do it.
- Avitus ( i.e. the canon traitor) reveals he fell into despair when he learned Kyras was a Chaos worshipper and is haunted by the memory of all those he has killed; that's why as the traitor, he decided to commit Suicide by Cop. Even at the end of the mission when Tarkus attempts to offer him some comfort, Avitus just shrugs it off.
Tarkus: No man died in his service that died in vain.
Avitus: Spare us your empty platitudes! It matters not who lives and dies! Blood is shed, as it has always been! There is nothing else in this forsaken...existence...!- Despite being possessed by a greater daemon, Jonah Orion does not fall easily. With all his will, he fights the control of the daemon just long enough to deprive him of his powers and for his brothers to deal the finishing blow. The daemon also claims that if Jonah is slain, he will have nothing to protect him from being dragged screaming into the Warp. Tarkus replies:
Tarkus: The man who has nothing, can still have faith.- If Tarkus is the traitor, he only did so out of a desire to save his brothers. Even during the battle, he's giving them the same kind, reassuring advice he used to give them. As he dies, he either goes mad and begins talking to his cursed bolter, or his brothers brush off his legitimate grief as simple insanity out of denial. Either way is a tragic end for someone like him
Tarkus: We... we could have done so much, you and I. Why are you abandoning me? Why!?- If Cyrus is the traitor, he praises his brothers for well executed assaults and reminds them of the tactics they learned as scouts. From the way he speaks, it's heavily intoned that he was the instructor who taught the Force Commander how to be a Space Marine.
- When you lose a multiplayer game as the Eldar, one of the announcer's possible lines is a mournful "Somewhere we went astray". Most of the defeat quotes are defiant, but this one seems truly sad, especially once Fridge Horror sets in and you remember the Eldar are dying out. A lost battle harms them more than it does any of the other factions.
Retribution
- In Retribution's Tyranid and Chaos respective campaigns, you kill either Sergeant Merrick or Captain Thule respectively. More than one player has just refused to continue after that happens. Fortunately, nether route is canon.
- The Exterminatus of Typhon.
Listen to the unnamed fleet commander as the cutscene begins. His voice is firm and unyielding, but you can hear the sadness in it as he sentences the planet to death. As impressive as it is to watch, the music and narration emphasize how horrible Exterminatus is.- It's even more sad when you realise that the next person who speaks is Gabriel Angelos, who exterminated his own homeworld and regrets this. He REALLY knows how horrible Exterminatus is.
- Upon returning to Typhon after the Exterminatus has been carried out, you overhear a Howling Banshee Exarch describing what they found there: the fallen Craftworld's Infinity Circuit was shattered in the bombardment, and every soul inside lost to the warp. The woman sounds like she's barely holding it together, and running on automatic to keep herself going.
- And her next line? "You... you dare violate this tomb!" Especially as the Eldar.
- A particularly disheartening moment takes place during the final mission: Gabriel Angelos and his Blood Ravens are squaring off against Daemon Prince Kyras when your forces arrive on the verge of pulling off Big Damn Heroes or even a Villainous Rescue... only for Angelos and his buddies to get pasted just as you break through Kyras' forces.
- Out of all the endings, none are as nightmarish or heartbreaking as the Tyranids ending, especially if you are a fan of the Imperium and the Blood Ravens. Unlike the other factions, whose final sequence is a discussion between some of the main characters, the Tyranid campaign ends with the Imperium picking up a report filed nearly half a century earlier. Here, we learn that following Kyras' defeat, the Hive Lord successfully re-built its splinter fleet. Taking advantage of the Aurelian conflict, the Tyranids descended upon the other factions en-masse. We are not told the fate of the Eldar, Chaos forces, Orks or Traitor Blood Ravens, but the implication is that they were all completely wiped out. As for the Imperium's forces? They attempted to hold back the tide as they did decades earlier, but this time, there are no heroes to save them. Although we are not told the exact figures, less than 10% of the Imperial Guard forces made it out of Aurelia alive. Worst of all ... the Blood Ravens refused to abandon their recruitment worlds and were slaughtered to the last. The final segment shows that the Tyranids have now completely consumed Sub Sector Aurelia, using the bio-matter from their defeated enemies to build an even larger and more menacing Hive-Fleet. At the forefront of it all, the Swarmlord roars triumphantly, preparing to lead its new forces on an ever continuing campaign of genocide and consumption.
- May Imperial justice account in all balance. The Emperor protects.
